UME Groups 

A user management engine (UME) group is a collection of users. Groups serve to create sets of users who have something in common, for example, users who work in the same department or users who have similar tasks in a company. Groups make it easier to manage users. For example, you can assign a role to a group instead of assigning the role to each user individually. This is known as indirect role assignment.

You can create a hierarchy of groups, where groups are members of other groups. Nesting of groups in this manner can serve to represent the hierarchy in a company, for example.

In the following figure, users Le Clerc and Mikovics are members of the Java Developers Group and the ABAP Developers Group respectively. Through these respective groups Le Clerc and Mikovics receive the respective roles Java Development Role and ABAP Development Role. Both are members of the All Developers Group and through this group both receive the Development Role.

Indirect Role Assignment and Nested Groups

With this structure an administrator can assign the roles needed for Java development or ABAP development by assigning the user to the relevant group.

This nested group structure also plays a role in searches. If you search for the members of the Development Role, the UME only returns the All Developers Group unless you enable a recursive search. A recursive search returns the Java Developers Group, the ABAP Developers Group, the user Le Clerc, and the user Mikovics as well.

For more information, see Managing Users, Groups, and Roles.

Virtual Groups

Groups are normally stored in the data source of the AS Java. However there are some groups that exist virtually. The groups and their membership are determined at runtime. The following are virtual or built-in groups:

·        Built-in user groups

These groups are part of every installation. They include the groups Everyone and Authenticated Users.

For more information, see Standard User Groups.

·        Virtual groups

These groups are based on the values of a single attribute in the user profile.

For more information, see Configuring Virtual Groups.

·        Company groups

These groups are generated by the UME when you configure companies.

For more information, see Company Group.

ABAP Roles as UME Groups

When the user management of an AS ABAP is the data source of the AS Java, UME groups are used to represent ABAP roles. Limitations apply to how you can manage these groups.

For more information, see Constraints for UME with ABAP Data Source.

LDAP and UME Groups

When an LDAP is the data source of the AS Java, limitations apply.

For more information, see LDAP Directory as Data Source.